Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama on Friday formally nominated Jeh Johnson, the former top lawyer at the Defense Department, to be the new Homeland Security Secretary.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Obama praised Johnson's work leading the Pentagon's 10,000 civilian and military lawyers as general counsel, a position he was named to in 2009 and held until he left for private practice last year.FULL POST

(CNN) - The man looking to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a GOP primary has earned the endorsement of a major conservative super PAC, an endorsement that comes on the heels of a deal McConnell brokered ending the partial government shutdown.

McConnell did himself few favors with some in the conservative base by ushering in a last-minute bargain Wednesday reopening the government and raising the nation's borrowing authority while earning only cosmetic changes to Obamacare.FULL POST

(CNN) - Senator-elect Cory Booker will move forward with his support of same-sex marriage, with plans to grant the marriages of several same-sex couples 12:01 a.m. Monday after a court ruling goes into effect.

The story was first reported by Buzzfeed. The New Jersey Democrat, who's the mayor of Newark, re-tweeted that article to his celebrity-sized Twitter crowd of 1.4 million followers.FULL POST